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Wellington-born William Fell was a 19-year-old midshipman on board the Royal
Navy battleship HMS Warspite in 1916.
He took part in the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the First
World War. The Warspite was hit
several times and 14 of her crew were killed.

In a 1961 radio programme, ‘First War
Sailor’, Captain Fell (as he later became) vividly recounts his experience. He
was a 'snotty', as the teenaged junior midshipmen were called in Navy slang,
and his position at the transmitting station meant he was locked in the bowels
of the ship as the battle raged above.